Congressman Trent Franks' (R-AZ) H.R. 668 calls for protecting America's electrical grids from electromagnetic pulse (EMP). The legislation is known as The SHIELD Act. "SHIELD" is an acronym for "Secure High-voltage Infrastructure for Electricity from Lethal Damage." If you've ever given a thought to how you retrieve funds from your bank, either from inside the lobby or from and ATM, in the event of a major attack on our electrical grids - when everything automated and computerized goes down, then you know why this is important legislation. And there are consequences far beyond my somewhat minor example above, as you will clearly see in this video. The Bill went to the House Energy and Commerce, and House Budget Committees in February 2011. It's just sitting there with 41 co-sponsors, 4 of whom are Democrats. According to Obama's criteria, that would be uber-bipartisan.

It is important to note that electromagnetic pulses come not exclusively from nuclear detonations high above earth's surface, but can occur naturally. Before getting to some explanation of how untenable an EMP will be for us - for many, many years, I noticed this on Congressman Franks website today:

...will ensure Americas power companies are able to comply with Department of Energy emergency orders to maintain grid reliability without facing penalties for violating potentially conflicting environmental laws.

So we have approved "maintain[ing] grid reliability" to comply with the DOE, to avoid environmental missteps, when the truth is, if and when an EMP happens, we can maintain exactly nothing, and "environmental laws" will be blown to hell.

In 2010, a similar Bill passed the House with a voice vote, but Rep. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) helped kill it. She supported the Democrat Clean Energy Bill.

After reading the following and watching the video, help us reach out to House Energy and Commerce Chairman, Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI). Ask him to bring this legislation out, dust it off and move it forward. See a list of Committee members here. If you are from Michigan you can phone and email Upton and probably get through. If not, Tweet to @RepFredUpton.

Trent Franks:

"The threat of an electromagnetic pulse weapon represents the single greatest asymmetric capability that could fall into the hands of America's enemies. Should a nuclear weapon from a rogue state such as Iran be detonated in Earth's atmosphere at a sufficient height above the continental United States, the blast of electromagnetic energy could immediately cripple America's electric power grid. Currently, the vast majority of the United States' infrastructure is unsecured and exposed.

"According to some experts, just one properly placed EMP blast could disable so large a swath of American technology that between 70-90% of the United States' population could become unsustainable."The danger posed by electromagnetic pulse weapons, as well as naturally occurring electromagnetic pulses, has received increased attention over recent years from organizations including NASA, the National Association of Scientists, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The Congressional EMP Caucus is a bipartisan effort to bring much-needed Congressional attention to what has amounted, to this point, to a considerable blind spot in our national security.

"In an effort to proactively address this blind spot concerning the danger of EMP, I have introduced H.R. 668, the SHIELD Act, which would secure the most critical components of America's electrical infrastructure against the threat posed by a potentially catastrophic electromagnetic pulse."

The following information came via email from Hank Cooper, via Jim Simpson. Cooper worked on the framework of Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and was the Director of Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) in the G.H.W. Bush administration.

Iran or other rogue states can bring the United States to its knees by detonating a low-kiloton yield nuclear warhead above the U.S. to produce a powerful electromagnetic pulse (EMP). The EMP could destroy electronic devices across the country. It could cause the collapse of the national electric grid and other critical infrastructures that sustain our modern economy and the lives of 300 million americans. Soon after an EMP event, there could be a substantial impact on communications, transportation, industry, food and water supplies...

The Sun can also cause an electronic apocalypse by means of a great geomagnetic storm. This is a rare but periodic phenomenon, last of which [happened] in 1859 called the the "Carrington Event." If a great geomagnetic storm like the Carrington Event happens today, electric grids and life-sustaining critical infrastructures could collapse everywhere on Earth.

Many scientists are concerned that the world is overdue for another Carrington Event, which could recur during the next solar maximum. The next solar maximum is only months away and will commence in December 201 and last through 2013...

The Task Force on National and Homeland Security was established by the Congressional EMP Caucus in November 2011 to inform Americans of these threats by educating bureaucrats in Washington who have left our nation vulnerable.

The Task Force has a plan, designed by the EMP Commission that would quickly and at reasonable cost protect our critical infrastructures, our nation and our families.

Oh ya, another government will protect us all from doom so give us more money and control over your life and we’ll make it all better proposal. Give me a break, this will be yet another Solydra type waste of money that will do nothing about the making of our electrical grid safe. Kind of like the TSA, they don’t make flying any safer but they sure do make it more of a pain in the A## and they spend a ton of your money doing it.

People should learn that the government is not here to help and demanding government action for things like this will only screw things up more and result in yet another little loss in our freedom.

If you are a survivalist and want to have spare electronics stuff stored away in the event of an EMP attack? Scrounge up all the old non working microwave ovens you can find. I have a replacement ECU for each of my vehicles, among other things stored away.

The military has had EMP and rad hardened gear since the 1950’s. You don't see it in commercial products because it costs too much to implement. Faraday cages and well grounded metallic structures will help shield sensitive electronics from fast rising voltage gradients.

A “chink” is a hole or an opening. As in the building of log cabins, tobacco barns and rural outbuildings. The “chinks” are filled in with “chinking.” The same goes for chinking of those fancy log cabin package homes folks build today.

if “the grid” needs to “protect itself” it needs no legislation to chose to make the investments to do that

if “the grid” does not feel such investments have already been lax, then the providers of equipment to “protect the grid” need legislation to demand “the grid” make more such investments and get taxpayer help to do it

OK, here’s the dope on EMP and our electrical grid: There’s no way to make everything “robust” in the face of EMP. The best that we could do is develop redundancy and backup in depth.

The clowns in Congress don’t know jack about electronics. Most of the think tank morons advocating for this stuff (like Newt Gingrich) don’t know jack about this stuff.

Those of us who do have a clue about energy, electrical generation, transmission, “alternative energy” and thermodynamics are growing increasingly weary of the BS from people who don’t.

My current rant on all of this stuff goes like this:

“If you didn’t study engineering, then put on a dunce hat, go sit in the corner and STFU. You decided long ago that you wanted to get drunk, stoned and laid every night in college, so you studied something easy. This means that you have nothing to contribute on this subject today. Enjoy the technology and ease of modern life that has been brought to you by the efforts of other people who have been willing to study harder, learn more and work harder than you. If you can’t get out of the way of people who actually do know what they’re talking about, our advice for all of you liberal arts majors to catch up to the engineers is to start back at the beginning: learn how to bang rocks together. You’ll eventually get the hang of it.”

NV Dave, Henry (Hank) Cooper, who I named in the article, has a BA and a Master’s in Science and has taught engineering at Clemson. He was GHW Bush’s SDI advisor and Reagan’s SDI Director, and served as his Asst Director of the Arms and Disarmament Agency. He is a former scientific advisor to the Air Force Weapons Laboratory. What is Cooper missing?

You got his creds wrong. He has a BS/MS in mechanical engineering. And a PhD in mechanical engineering. OK, that’s good... a mechanical engineer talking to me about aircraft, material science, building construction, dams, etc. OK, I’m interested and will listen.... until I start sussing out why he’s spending so much time peddling this position, which would require a whole lot of money changing hands that isn’t his.

He’s a member of all manner of DC beltway bandits, think tanks and other groups of Very Important People who go to Many Fine Dinners to Avoid Doing Actual Work.

When I see a long string of government jobs on a resume’, especially jobs with ZERO accountability, telling me that I’m going to have to fork up big bucks, have another government agency stick their snout up my ass “for the public good,” I become rather hostile. When I see a guy who is trying to trade on his PhD in engineering for expertise who always uses the title “Ambassador” in his CV... sorry, I have to discount the engineering expertise. They guys who impress me most with PhD’s usually tell people “Can the Dr. honorific crap, call me Hank, let’s get to work.”

Want to impress me? Show me some private sector experience, where there’s some accountability. Want to impress me more? Show me a guy who has wrangled a big project to completion.

For example: Want an example of a guy who would impress me on the subject of bridge safety? We’re told how the infrastructure in the US is in dire need of repair. OK, here’s examples of guys I’d listen to: How about the PE’s who designed and bulldogged the Hoover Dam bypass? Those guys have some actual accomplishment behind them, as well as PE’s behind their names. They’re subject to actual malpractice liability if that bridge falls down. If they start telling me that we need to repair bridges to the tune of $X trillion dollars, OK, I’m listening with rapt attention.

But someone who has been an ambassador, a plum political job for campaign contributors? And who has been peddling all manner of brilliant ideas for years into the government from various think tanks without accountability? And is now a member (”fellow”) of all manner of beltway think tanks, which have now clustered around our legislators like parasites, peddling all manner of nonsense to know-less-than-nothing legislators?

No thanks.

I’m fed up with government nannies telling us that the sky is falling every 10 minutes. They’re invariably full of crap. When they’re found out to be full of crap, there is nothing we can do to get our money back from these damn frauds. Because the public debate about these topics comes down to know-less-than-nothing legislators, most of whom have liberal arts degrees, taking advice from think tanks (who often have unclean hands in the money game on these projects), I’m getting rather hostile about these subjects where I have some education and expertise. The alarum and sabre-rattling by these beltway bandit clowns would stop if the legislators would learn something or at least have some people on their staffs that knew their posteriors from a warm hole in the ground. But they don’t.

Want to know why I’m getting so hostile?

WE ARE BROKE. That’s it, that’s the bottom line. WE ARE BROKE.

We have at most, another three years to reverse course on this outlandish rate of spending we’re pursuing, or we’re irretrievably screwed. Part of being broke is that we don’t have the capacity to pursue any new nonsense, and fiscal responsibility can start by ceasing to propose expensive new projects with dubious justification, which is what we have here.

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.